Tutor Group Discussion

Today, on our Tutor Group, we had a very interesting discussion about teaching craft skills in Art and Design courses. I realised I hold a particular view on this and the exercise we did last week on the PGCert course served as a trigger for thoughts on this subject.

British Universities seem to be more and more inclined to scrape craft skills teaching (anatomy, drawing materials and techniques, etc…) as part of their BA courses. Cheltenham is closing one of the last University foundries, forcing my friend Hamish to write a book on metal casting to prevent knowledge been lost forever. Wimbledon is getting rid of their black and white darkrooms in favour of computer imaging (1 x darkroom = 4 x computer workstations).

In my home University (Universidad del Pais Vasco, Bilbao ), we were taught anatomy (bones and muscles, how do they move, how can they be represented), watercolour or even chemistry, and what we called cooking class (how to make your own oil paints etc...). I am not saying that BA’s should have a solely skills based curriculum but a balance must be found somewhere. Students today are highly independent and confident (which is something very few cared about in Bilbao) but, in my opinion, they lack knowledge about the essential tools of the trade.

Readers may have noticed I started a ballet syllabus at the age of 26. The more ballet I learn the more I think about its similarities with Art and Design education. Not what Art and Design education actually is, but what it could be. I enjoy doing technique because ballet IS technique. Without properly executed plies, pas de chats and grandes jetes en tournant (to name a few), one couldn’t subvert movements and choreograph music. Moreover, I couldn’t really dance without that knowledge. It is painful to learn how to pirouette. I have fallen flat on my face a few times. But now that I more or less know, I can begin to understand and relate it to other things (like the 4th ouvert position etc…) and aspects of dance (the 32 fouette turns of Swan Lake as a symbol of technique mastery). Without the technique and the fundaments of ballet, even if my conceptual thinking was very advanced, I would be a dancer with the most incredible thoughts and no language to transmit them.